CARE YOUR HEALTH

For most people talking on a mobile phone, cooking dinner in the microwave or driving in a car is simply part of modern living in 21st century Britain.

But completing any such tasks is impossible for Debbie Bird - because she is allergic to modern technology.

Debbie and her husband Tony often sleep in a silver-plated mosquito net

The 39-year-old is so sensitive to the electromagnetic field (emf) or 'smog' created by computers, mobile phones, microwave ovens and even some cars, that she develops a painful skin rash and her eyelids swell to three times their size if she goes near them.

Debbie Bird's eyelids swell to three times their size when she is exposed to microwaves

As a consequence, Mrs Bird, a health spa manager, has transformed her home into an EMF-free zone to try and stay healthy.

The walls are all covered in special carbon paint, the windows have a protective film on them and she and her husband, Tony, 45, even sleep under a silver-plated mosquito net to deflect the radiowaves.

'I can no longer do things that I used to take for granted,' Mrs Bird said last night. 'My day-to-day life has been seriously affected by EMF.

'I don't own a microwave. I don't use mobile phones at all. I can't even use a cordless phone. We have a plasma screen TV because the old style one gave out gamma rays, which brought on my reaction.

'I can't even get in my friend's BMW. If I do I immediately start getting a headache and my head starts tingling.

'Even shopping is a problem. I can't go in places like Starbucks where there is Wi-Fi broadband and always have to be aware of my environment.'

Mrs Bird first realised that she was electro-sensitive when she moved with her husband, a writer and environmental consultant, and their eight-year-old daughter, Antonia, to a new apartment in Bowden, near Altrincham, Greater Manchester.

Unbeknown to her, however, her neighbours were all using wireless internet connections and had cordless phones.

'At first I couldn't sleep,' Mrs Bird added. 'Then I started developing a skin reaction. I had a burning sensation down my face, on my forehead and elbows. I looked like I had been severely burnt on my forehead.

'I felt very tired all the time and my eye-lids would swell up to three times their size.'

Debbie's home is a radio-wave free zone. A clear protective film has been put on the windows and the walls have been redecorated with a special carbon paint

Mrs Bird was referred to a skin specialist, but the problem was so severe the couple decided they had no option but to move to a new home, in nearby Hale, Greater Manchester.

They took electromagnetic readings of the property and set about making it safe. The house was completely re-wired, had clear protective film put on the windows and every wall was painted with black carbon paint, which cost £250 per tin, to deflect the harmful rays.

All the couple's bedroom curtains are also silver-plated and they sleep under a silver-plated mosquito net, which also protects against radiation.

Although the renovation was not cheap, Mrs Bird said it was worth it. Her skin rashes have gone and she no longer has trouble sleeping. Officially in the UK, electro-sensitivity (ES) does not exist as a medical condition.

Doctors say there is little scientific evidence to back up a link between EMF and poor health. They claim the symptoms, often attributed to flu or viruses, are psychosomatic.

But campaigners disagree. They reckon around 500 people are already being treated for ES and as many as five per cent of the population could be affected.

Rod Read, director of Electro-Sensitivity UK, said: 'I have seen hundreds of people who exhibit symptoms they directly attribute to the electrical items around them.

'But it is a politically incorrect illness, the Government or electronic companies don't want people thinking their mobile phones or microwaves are dangerous.

'In the past doctors have dismissed symptoms as something like flu, but the pathology is now established. It has a huge detrimental physical effect and stops people living normal lives.'

That's the story of AJ, an extraordinary 40-year-old married woman who remembers everything.

The "human calendar."

That's what some people call the woman who contacted UC Irvine neurobiologist Jim McGaugh six years ago and said, "I have a problem. I remember too much."

She wasn't exaggerating. McGaugh and fellow UCI researchers Larry Cahill and Elizabeth Parker have been studying the extraordinary case of a person who has "nonstop, uncontrollable and automatic" memory of her personal history and countless public events.

If you randomly pick a date from the past 25 years and ask her about it, she'll usually provide elaborate, verifiable details about what happened to her that day and if there were any significant news events on topics that interested her. She usually also recalls what day of the week it was and what the weather was like.

The 40-year-old woman, who was given the code name AJ to protect her privacy, is so unusual that UCI coined a name for her condition in a recent issue of the journal Neurocase: hyperthymestic syndrome.

"I have studied learning and memory for over 50 years, and I had never read of or even heard about a person who has a comparable ability to remember," McGaugh said. "However, we do not know whether she is unique or whether there may be others with comparable remembering ability who have not as yet been identified."

McGaugh answered dozens of questions about AJ last week. Here are excerpts from our interview.

It's a bitterly cold winter day and students on the University of Minnesota campus are bundled up, hurrying to their next class. Wim Hof, dressed in shorts, sandals and nothing else, appeared from the doorway of a school building.

He's known as 'The Ice Man."

Scientists can't really explain it, but the 48-year-old Dutchman is able to withstand, and even thrive, in temperatures that could be fatal to the average person.

From the Arctic Circle to Mount Everest

It's an ability he discovered in himself as a young man 20 years ago.

"I had a stroll like this in the park with somebody and I saw the ice and I thought, what would happen if I go in there. I was really attracted to it. I went in, got rid of my clothes. Thirty seconds I was in," Hof said. "Tremendous good feeling when I came out and since then, I repeated it every day." It was the moment that Hof knew that his body was different somehow: He was able to withstand fatally freezing temperatures.

Hof began a lifelong quest to see just how far his abilities would take him. In January of 1999 he traveled 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle to run a half-marathon in his bare feet. Three years later, dressed only in a swimsuit, he dove under the ice at the North Pole and earned a Guinness World Record for the longest amount of time swimming under the ice: 80 meters, almost twice the length of an Olympic-sized pool.

When he didn't experience frostbite or hypothermia, the body's usual reactions to extreme cold, his extraordinary ability started to get the attention of doctors who specialize in extreme medicine.

Dr. Ken Kamler, author of "Surviving the Extremes," has treated dozens of people who tried to climb Mount Everest, and instead nearly died from the frigid temperatures. He couldn't believe it when he got word of a Dutchman making the ascent with no protection other than a pair of shorts.

"People are always looking for new firsts on Everest. It's been climbed so many times now, people climb it without oxygen, they … they climb it with all different kinds of handicaps. But no one has come close to climbing Everest in those kinds of conditions," Dr. Kamler said. "It's … it's almost inconceivable."

Millions of dieters would give their right arm to be afflicted by the illness that is plaguing John Perry.

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Mr Perry, 59, can eat whatever he likes - including unlimited pies, burgers and desserts - and never get fat.

He cannot put on weight because of a condition called lipodystrophy that makes his body rapidly burn fat.

Mr Perry regularly eats Chinese takeaways, chips, chocolate and clotted cream, but his weight has remained stable at 11st 12lb.

He told the Sun that he used to be a chubby child, but at age 12 the fat dropped off "almost over night".

Doctors thought he was refusing to eat or had a stomach ulcer, he said.

He initially tried to eat more to gain weight, but it had no effect.

“I didn’t like being slim at first. As a teenager playing football I was so thin I got embarrassed taking my shirt off," he said.

“I used to eat loads of chocolate to try and put on weight but I couldn’t.”

Mr Perry, of Ilford in Essex, endured a decade of tests before the illness was diagnosed. It finally emerged that his body produces six times the normal level of insulin.

Doctors have admitted that the condition would be a "slimmer's dream".

Please take care while u eat on the road side (particularly tasty vada pav & Paani Puri)...

A 10 year old boy, had eaten pineapple about 15 days back, and fell
sick,from the day he had eaten. Later when he had his Health check done...
doctors diagnosed that he had AIDS.

His parents couldn't believe it...Then the entire family under went a
Checkup... none of them suffered from Aids. So the doctors checked again
with the boy if he had eaten out...The boy said "yes". He had pineapple
that evening.Immediately a group from Mallya hospital went to the pineapple
vendor to check.

They found the pineapple seller had a cut on his finger while cutting the
pineapple , his blood had spread into the fruit.

When they had his blood checked...the guy was suffering from AIDS ..... but
he himself was NOT aware.Unfortunately the boy is suffering from it now.

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:
During a party, a friend stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine and just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes. (they offered to call ambulance)

They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food - while she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening. Ingrid's husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital - (at 6:00pm , Ingrid passed away.)
She had suffered a stroke at the party . Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today.



STROKE IDENTIFICATION:
A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke...totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE:
Remember the '3' steps, STR . Read and Learn!
Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster.
The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke.


Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions :

S -> Ask the individual to SMILE ..
T -> TALK. Ask the person to SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently)
(eg 'It is sunny out today').
R -> Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS .


If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call the ambulance and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.


NOTE : Another 'sign' of a stroke is
1. Ask the person to 'stick' out their tongue.
2. If the tongue is 'crooked', if it goes to one side or the other that is also an indication of a stroke.